The proposed public restroom facility in Thomas Centennial Park is moving
forward.

Slowly.

But it’s moving forward.

At the Chesterton Town Council’s meeting Monday night, Town Engineer Mark
O’Dell said that he, Park Superintendent Bruce Mathias, and CHS building
trades teacher Jeff Larson had a productive meeting last week.

The upshot of that meeting: local architect Dave Kinel will tweak a restroom
design which he formerly did for the City of Hobart.

“We’ll get a better concept drawing and bring it back to you,” O’Dell said.

The idea now is for Larson’s building trades students to construct the
restroom as a class project and a space in Thomas Centennial Park has
already been cleared for the site.

Mathias has estimated that the cost of the restroom will probably be
significantly less than the $150,00 to $175,000 which the council was
prepared to pay, in CEDIT funds.

Westchester-Liberty Trail

In other business, O’Dell had a spot of bad news. And some of good.

The bad: the Lake Michigan Coastal Project (LMCP) will not accept a
grant application from the town for the hard construction costs of the new
phase of the Westchester-Liberty Trail, along 1100N from the Rose Hill
Estates subdivision to 11th Street.

The good news: LMCP will accept a grant application for the design
and engineering costs.

Phase I of the Westchester-Liberty Trail has already been built: the
sidewalk along the north side of 1100N from 23rd Street to Rose Hill
Estates. But the project has been complicated by the fact that a sizable
stretch of the next phase—all the way to 11th Street—falls in a officially
designated wetland, which will likely require the design and construction of
some kind of boardwalk.

When completed, the trail will have its terminus near Rail Road.

2013 Budget
Ordinance

Meanwhile, members voted 5-0 on first reading to approve the 2013 budget
ordinance, then 5-0 to suspend the rules and 5-0 to approve the ordinance on
final reading.

That ordinance provides for a total advertised budget of $16,793,442, of
which $4,404,007 will come from property taxes, at a rate of $0.7970 per
$100 of assessed valuation. This year’s official tax rate is $0.7466.

Lease-Purchase

Members also voted 5-0 to authorized Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg
to acquire a new pickup truck—to replace a 1998 model which just sold at the
annual municipal auction—under a lease-purchase agreement. Schnadenberg had
planned to pay for the new pickup partially with the proceeds of the old
truck’s sale but opted to go for a lease-purchase agreement, given the state
of uncertainty over department funds with the winter creeping up.

“The interest rates are low and we can always pay it off without penalties,”
Schnadenberg said.